Nowadays there is an ever growing need to verify PCB designs electrically. One of the most common ways of doing this is to use the IPC-D-356A format for bare board electrical test fixture netlist testing. This is the standard that has been provided by the IPC, which many fabrication houses are able to use.
DBX2IPC is a program that extracts net information from the PCB database and writes it out as an IPC-D-356A netlist. DBX2IPC supports the following...
1) Through Hole and Surface Mount Pads and Vias
2) Blind and Buried Vias
3) Round vs. Square Pads/Vias
4) Long Signal Names
5) English and Metric Units
6) Midpoint Indication
7) Targets, Mounting Holes, Tooling Holes & Fiducials
8) Board Outline
9) Controlled Impedance Test Data
10) Offset Pads
11) Non-Connected Pads
12) Custom Soldermask Data
13) TestPoint 'Points' (NEW in P-CAD 2001)
NEW!!! For P-CAD 2004, DBX2IPC Now supports Notes, and has Language Support - per the IPC-D-356A Specification. This means that languages like French, German, Spanish - among others can now include Comments within the IPC-D-356A Electrical Test Data.
One can also Export Notes - Fabrication, or otherwise - from PCB, and then Import these into DBX2IPC, and have these included in the IPC-D-356A Electrical Test Data.
DBX2IPC was written using the official IPC-D-356A standard (dated January 1998). Utilizing this documentation, Oztronics was able to achieve the best in data conformance.
DBX2IPC uses the ACCEL DataBase eXchange (DBX) Interface to extract the netlist information from your Printed Circuit Board (PCB) designs.
DBX2IPC is a 32-bit program that runs in a Windows 95/98/XP environment, and has been updated to work with P-CAD 2004 - Version 18.
The example (partial) file shown below is the result of running DBX2IPC.
C IPC-D-356A Bare Board Electrical Test Information C Created by DBX2IPC-356 - Written by James Jackson @ Oztronics C Date: 09-07-1999 C Time: 21:04:35 C Design Name: C:\Accel15\Data\Xetron\5066-002.pcb C Title: 1MEG X 8 SRAM MEMORY MODULE C Designer: J. Jackson C Drawing Num: C Version: 002 C C --------------- Layer Stackup --------------- C C ---------- 1 Top ---------- C ---------- 2 Bottom ---------- C P JOB C:\Accel15\Data\Xetron\5066-002.IPC P UNITS CUST 0 P DIM N P TITLE 1MEG X 8 SRAM MEMORY MODULE P NUM P VER IPC-D-356A P CODE 01 327~CE0 U1 -22 A01X 031250Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE0 P4 -23 D0300PA00X 048750Y 030750X0400 317~CE0 VIA MD0160PA00X 033000Y 037250X0260 317~CE0 VIA MD0160PA00X 048250Y 037250X0260 327~CE1 U2 -22 A01X 037750Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE1 P4 -24 D0300PA00X 049250Y 030750X0400 317~CE1 VIA MD0160PA00X 040000Y 036250X0260 317~CE1 VIA MD0160PA00X 049250Y 035500X0260 327~CE2 U3 -22 A01X 044250Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE2 P4 -27 D0300PA00X 050750Y 030750X0400 317~CE2 P4 -28 D0300PA00X 051250Y 030750X0400 317~CE2 VIA MD0160PA00X 045000Y 041250X0260 317~CE2 VIA MD0160PA00X 052250Y 041250X0260 327~CE3 U4 -22 A01X 050750Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE3 P4 -29 D0300PA00X 051750Y 030750X0400 317~CE3 P4 -30 D0300PA00X 052250Y 030750X0400 327~CE4 U5 -22 A01X 057250Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE4 P4 -33 D0300PA00X 053750Y 030750X0400 317~CE4 P4 -34 D0300PA00X 054250Y 030750X0400 317~CE4 VIA MD0160PA00X 053750Y 037250X0260 317~CE4 VIA MD0160PA00X 058000Y 037250X0260 327~CE5 U6 -22 A01X 063750Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE5 P4 -35 D0300PA00X 054750Y 030750X0400 317~CE5 P4 -36 D0300PA00X 055250Y 030750X0400 317~CE5 VIA MD0160PA00X 054250Y 043500X0260 317~CE5 VIA MD0160PA00X 065000Y 043500X0260 327~CE6 U7 -22 A01X 070250Y 041250X0800Y0260R180 317~CE6 P4 -31 D0300PA00X 052750Y 030750X0400
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